I am an editor at a small production company (in PAL land) that has been using the EX to shoot broadcast documentaries. Now, we have come to the end of our run and are mainly using the camera to shoot content for our website. I was wondering if it was worth switching the format from interlaced to progressive seeing as the content we put online will have to be deinterlaced anyway....

My gut feeling is to stick with 1080/50i since, when putting content on the web we'll be compressing it anyway, the gains in resolution from shooting progressive will be negated. Plus if we end up using the footage in a broadcast show in the future it'll be better to have it in interlaced form.

I would like to hear some opinions on this since I am being asked to make a decision on this. It'd be nice to get some more thoughts on the matter.

Hi Christopher,
If you make video for the web it doesn't make sense to record interlaced.
Most of my work is finished in DVD and even for those I shoot in Progressive.
Most of the DVDs are watched in computers (interlacing looks horrible) and even if they are played in TV sets they look great.
I only shoot interlaced if a client ask me to do so and even in this case I ask him why.
best,
rafael

Some people have mentioned this before and the general consensus was that progressive (especially for web) is the way to go. I think it was also mentioned that you actually loose resolution and quality during the de-interlacing process.

If it helps, I would shoot 1280 x 720 25 fps progressive as it’s a bit easer to work with but 1080 25p is probably what you would be more comfortable with.

Do you have time to do some test shots, as this will probably come down to personal preference and work flow? Along that line of thought, you might want to try a different look than what you have been doing in the past. Perhaps a progressive image might help with that.

If you interested (perhaps you already know) here is a link to a nice picture profile that I have been playing with. I have been shooting with a vortex media picture profile and I think it’s too sharp for my liking.